It's All about the Journey; Handbound books, Rubber Stamping, Paper Crafting and Tutorials. Where will your crafting journey take you?

Garden Birds launch Time Team experiments

I adore garden birds and we always have feeders up and provide shelter and water for the local birds. There are quite a collection of regulars including; blackbirds, sparrows, blue tits, chaffinches, collard doves, wood pigeons. Occasionally we have a greater spotted woodpecker drop in and in the winter we have been known to see a redwing, if there is snow on the ground and we have put apples out.

The other day I was in the garden and noticed although the large flocks of starlings had come down for the crusts of bread I’d put out (soaked in water, so not a choking hazard to little uns) that once the bread was cleared they start to prod at the grass looking for leather jackets and ants. There was an ant’s nest under the bird bath and I saw one starling delicately picking up single ants and placing them under its wing. It’s known as anting, the ants spray formic acid as a defence and its thought that the birds are using this either as a mite repellent or as a feather conditioner. We get large flocks of starlings, and call them the Dyson Squad as the descend on mass and hoover up any food in the garden. They gather at dusk on the house roofs and leave on mass. We get to see them swirl sometimes, especially if the sparrowhawk comes round as they chase it off.

The sparrows have nested for a third year running in the loft. They are on their third brood this year.

The blackbirds need asbos! They are bonkers! They have decided the bird bath is theirs and chase off anything that comes..but the sparrows come in gangs and the black bird can’t chase a dozen of them, so while he’s chasing one the others nip in the water. There are dedicated ‘wash a starling’ sessions where one bird notices we have a bird bath and the whole crew comes down for a wash, very social birds, they bath with a friend or 3! The sparrows sit just out of reach and enjoy the splashing till the starlings finish then they go in.

Wash a starling day

Time Team investigations in the garden

After the ‘Dyson squad’ made a visit at lunch time, I went out to refill the baths for them all and noticed the grass looked like it had been Geo-physed by the Time Team people, the lawn was covered in holes. (Good for aerating the grass though).

Garden Birds do a Time Team Investigation

Loads of holes where the starlings beaks had dug in the ground looking for tasty morsels.

Garden Birds do a Time Team Investigation

The blackbirds are joining in with the Time Team experiment and have opened up a ‘trench’ in the rockery!

Blackbirds opened up a ‘trench’ in the rockery

All the feathered Time Team are very keen and have been back several time for further investigations.

Haven’t seen the robin for a while, I think he’s hiding out moulting as there was a juvenile robin some weeks back. The pair of dunnocks has gone into hiding after their little un fledged too.

Bless em!

Advertisements

Rate this:

Share this:

Like this:

Related

2 Responses

LOL Billie love your Time Team analogy. I do envy you your Dyson squad – well perhaps not that amount but would love to see starlings here again and listen to the things they mimic – very clever little birds.

We used to have conifers all across the back of the garden, and late afternoon they would fill with starlings, must have been hundreds off them. Once they decided there was enough of them, they would all fly of somewhere else to roost together.

We have lost some of the trees but the birds have stayed in the area and now gather across the house roofs. You can tell the wind direction but the directions the birds all point. Its like a live action version of the cartoon ‘for the birds’ by Pixar. hehe

News Updates

New projects have been added to the tabs across the top of the blog.
Check out the 'About' tab, for Challenge themes and free downloadable Calendar Pages are now on there too. Now you can access these all year long.
Just had a tidy up of the side bar and joined Pinterest, do use the follow button to keep up to date with new posts and updates.
Have fun
Billie :)

Grab My Button

To add this button to your blog or website, copy and paste the following code: